October 29, 2008

For me, the most exciting part about Diwali is making a rangoli. Everywhere you go in India, you find a unique style of floor art or rangoli. This tradition goes back to 5000 years in India. While certain designs are created for special occasions such as weddings and religious festivals, a majority of the time, the only limitation is the artists' creativity.

Traditionally there are two forms of floor art. While rangoli, characteristic of Western India (Maharashtra, Gujarat, Rajasthan) is a rainbow of colours, the other side of the spectrum are the floor art of Eastern India - Bengal, Orissa, Himachal where they use Alpana, a line drawing in rice powder paste. Since I'm more comfortable with the brush, I prefer the later, though with a difference. Instead of the traditional rice powder, I make use of gheru - powdered red clay.

Ever since we shifted to the new house (some 10 years back), our rangolis have become bigger and more experimental. Afterall, floor is one of the best canvases an artist can ask for!

Here's a showcase of what I've been doing since the last few years.

I'm a big fan of warli painting and tried to use it in this rangoli.

Next year was a bigger, geometric design.

This one's done by my elder sister. She applied gheru on a chart paper and made this neat design with poster colour. The flowers and diyas completed the beautiful design.

The best part is that this design mat is reuseable!

And this one's one of my favourite. Inspired by mehendi design, I made this rising sun which made best use of the entrance space.

The mirrors, the decoupaged matki and the diyas gave it a very pretty look at night.